I have been reading The Painted Word by the author Tom Wolfe. He professes that there is truly only approximately 10,000 personalities in about eight cities throughout the world that makes the difference of which art and artists greatly succeed in this art world. I think that I am understanding Wolfe correctly, and if I am it does almost seem fruitless to continue expressing your creative impulses. However it just makes me tend to dig my heals in deeper and focus on making sure that my work always does honor to the space that it occupies. To me this should be the goal of every artist that wants his work to survive and challenge the minds of many for as long as it can.

Every serious artist that I have ever had the opportunity to speak candidly with shares to a great degree the same feelings and challenges as I experience on a continuum. It seems that the vast majority of artist experience rejection and ridicule quite often when they delve into controversial matters.

Why do we artists find it necessary to wade in to troubled waters? Is it because we like controversy? Do we enjoy being taunted and criticized and rejected? Perhaps some of us are a little sadomasochistic but I think that most artist merely have a deep sensitivity to these issues followed by a strong compulsion to express our feelings in an artistic manner. It just seems to follow that many viewers feel an equal or even stronger compulsion to lash out at us. Everyone has feelings, one way or another on most issues that deal with the human condition or our ecology. It seems to me that there is nothing in this universe that does not have some effect on the human condition and the world. I think all is interconnected in ways we may never understand, and I firmly believe that it is this vast lack of understanding that drives and motivates our creativity and our ongoing controversies. We can't have much of a controversy on matters we understand and agree on, can we?

The point I'm trying to get to with all I've written thus far is that artists must do art. We have a compulsion to do art. If we can't do art we seem to become more difficult to deal with and we lose much of our lust for life. This would become devastating to the artist and in my opinion a tremendous loss to the world.

When I look at the big picture and I think about only 10,000 personalities that truly decides the fate of our 'GREAT' success it does not seem to me that the true artists will be discouraged. We can't help ourselves, we must keep on keepin on.

I would offer a bit of advice to these honored few but it is not necessary because they really don't need my advice, they have all they need that was fed to them from birth or was coded into their DNA.


Finton